Now come on... Obama didn't put the crowd there. They put themselves in that lowly stature. You can't blame him or any of his WH advisors for where the crowd put themselves in relation to the teleprompters.

Apparently he reserves those trips for companies involved in the make-believe green economy, where people work jobs "created" by "stimulus" at a rate of $1 million per $40,000 job.

I like the photo at the link -- the way he's jumping over the forks on that forklift, to avoid getting oil or floor-dry on his expensive shoes. I like that exaggeratedly macho body language he's using, like he's crossing the final hurdle in the Olympics, as he's actually prancing daintily so as to avoid sullying his shiny loafers.

Where's his eye protection, by the way? The photo's pretty low-resolution, but it doesn't look like he's wearing any. I guess OSHA suspended the rules for a day.

In feudal imperial Japan, looking at the God Emperor was punishable by death. Usually on the spot. Today, you can look at your Obama, but he won't look at you. Infact, he probably barely acknowledges that you're even there.

Certainly it's the fault of his staff; the people who's job it is to make sure that the podium is the right size and the lights aren't horrible... and with lights he probably could really see the audience.

But part of public speaking (or theater) is knowing how to fake that you're looking at people you can't see.

The Drill SGT said... Well if you are talking about green and you are gonna just phone in the speech, why not reduce the carbon footprint and you know, "phone it in"

That would be too easy. Instead, Obama rides on Air Force One from DC to Wisconsin. That flight consumed thousands of gallons of jet fuel for the round trip. Also, his presidential helicopter or limo was carried on a large military transport plane (C-5 or C-17) that used many thousand more gallons of fuel. Don't forget to include the transportation of the Secret Service advance team and all of their support equipment on another plane.

Assuming Obama flew from Andrews AFB, MD to Menomonee Falls, WI, the straight line distance is 660 miles (563 nautical miles). Allowing for takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, and landing, that trip probably took about 90 minutes. From this source:

Typical fueling considerations in a 747-200 or 300 allow for 2,200 pounds of fuel to be used for taxi to take off. A fully loaded aircraft will use 33,000 pounds during take off and climb to cruising altitude. During the first half of the flight, the aircraft will consume an average of 28,000 pounds of fuel per hour. The aircraft lightens as it burns fuel and at the end of the trip, the fuel consumption drops to about 21,000 pounds per hour. Descending and landing consume the least fuel, around 6000 pounds. Unburdened of its fuel load, the aircraft will consume only 1000 pounds of fuel, less than half what it needed to taxi before take off. A reserve of 25,000 to 40,000 pounds is loaded to allow changing airports should it become necessary.

For a trip that short, AF1 would've been lightly loaded. We can estimate the fuel consumption each way as:

That works out to approximately 4162 to 4970 gallons of jet fuel. Double that for the round trip. You can likely double it again to account for the transport plane. Throw in the SS advance team and you're easily talking about 20,000-30,000 gallons of jet fuel for this one 660 mile trip. Or, as you suggest, he could've used the White House's superb teleconferencing capabilities and really been "green." But that wouldn't be nearly as fun as riding AF1.

The next time Obama talks about how we need to cut back in order to reduce our greenhouse emissions, he can kiss my ass.

After Obama’s speech, ZBB CEO Eric Apfelbach appeared on a local radio station to talk about the visit. The hosts asked him why his company was chosen for the presidential visit.

“I’ve gotten to know Governor Doyle pretty well. I know Mayor Barrett. Barrett did a press conference here earlier. Doyle did one for me when I was at Virent Energy.”

Apfelbach was bounced from Virent Energy after he failed to raise enough capital to cover its losses. He was replaced with someone with actual industry experience, though--to be fair--Virent still isn't making any money.

Apfelbach is one of the new capitalists--suck up to government, get the subsidies, hope for the best, move on to a new subsidized company if it doesn't work out.

I was hoping you saw that WSJ article echoing our comments yesterday, David. Far from "what America needs", ZBB is a shell company created to harvest the bounty of free money coming out of Washington...

Look, Obama is a narcissist and he really does not care about the ‘little people’. And he is quite arrogant in his views, views he will not change no matter what the reality of the situation is. Thus he speaks down to people.

Surely when he as campaigning for president everyone saw that when he spoke, right?